House of All Nations (110 page)

‘How do you know?'

‘I found out.'

He worried. ‘But it will look like fraud, dated today and no compensation!'

‘No, Olonsky will arrange that: he's an old hand. He knows so much on our family that he couldn't blackmail us; people would take him for a fantastic dreamer and discredit his whole story …'

‘Marianne! You know who did this to me?'

‘I should say so: the Bertillons, of course.'

‘Yes! I'll kill them for this. Tomorrow morning, I take those books to the police.'

She had hard work getting him away from his vengeance, but in the end he went to the lawyers with her, and it was carried out exactly as she had suggested in the first place. The lawyer behaved with admirable bonhomie. He knew of Aristide's anxiety to avoid the police and government officials and how he avoided half his income tax. At the end, Marianne found herself in possession of Aristide's three-story town house in the Rue du Docteur-Blanche, of the gold coins (of various countries) in the safety vault at the Crédit, of the bank accounts in three banks, with Aristide's future salary (six months' to be paid at the end of six months), all assigned to her, ‘on account of the following moneys received on loan and without previous security over a period of ten years'—a list of supposed loans followed. He appeared to own merely the cottage at Biarritz in which their son lived, and for this arranged a first and second mortgage, the first held by the shell company which theoretically paid Aristide's salary abroad and the second by Marianne through the company she had formed for the cinema gazette. The furniture in both houses was chattel-mortgaged through two clerks in Olonsky's office. Aristide held only his car, the first six months' salary which Bertillon had already paid him, the commissions coming to him on future business by his customers in the Mercure Bank and the Crédit …

When this series of transactions was completed, it was two in the morning, Aristide was speechless with fatigue and fear; the lawyer, tired, gave them drinks and Marianne a perplexed but congratulatory smile. Marianne noticed Aristide's collapse and said, ‘We must also draw up a release of these properties to my husband, in case anything should happen to me.'

‘I did not understand your last remark,' said the lawyer severely: ‘I know of a transfer, your consideration is complete, we say no more.' A warning to Marianne, that head of gold, not to melt, in other words. But at home she carefully wrote out and gave to Aristide the following release: ‘The bank accounts, gold, house-properties, mortgages and other estate which have been transferred to my name today on account of loans, I leave to my husband: taxes and encumbrances are to be paid from the rest of my estate, that is, from that part of my estate which I owned before this date,' and signed it.

Aristide, in whose eyes she had seen bogeys, nude bogeys of poverty and complete ruin took it carefully and folded it into his billfold. He did not even smile. He sat thinking for a while and then said, ‘Yes, I feel freer and safer.'

She smiled. Aristide was not really made for the commercial world: he liked knitting people together in all sorts of relations, that was his talent and that was why he was in business. A child could rob him. She was glad she had no such intention, for he was helpless.

But he tossed and moaned all night. He feared the tax inspector who was coming in the morning. When he shrieked she waked him up.

‘What are you dreaming of?'

‘Bertillon,' he said once.

‘Go to sleep—forget him.'

‘I can't, I can't. He tried to ruin me. I'll ruin him … he'll never get away with this.' He didn't sleep all night. In the morning, however, he was up, feverish and malicious. ‘This is his last day as a banker, that forger and liar!'

She had never seen him so wicked and resentful. She respected him for this thirst for vengeance. She did not try to detain him, nor did she say one word of all that Mouradzian had poured into her ears. Aristide rushed straight off to the Financial Investigation Division with his books.

‘Mr. Bertillon is going to close the bank today; he is going to ruin everyone: I know it. Here are his books. These books show that he has robbed and cheated the clients in various ways for years. You must send an inspector and a magistrate immediately and close the bank and arrest Bertillon. He has all his money abroad. I have seen it. If you give him any notice, he will fly—literally, for his brother is an airman and still has a pilot's license and a licensed plane …'

‘How do we know all this?' asked the police inspector.

‘My client Pharion asked for his account to be paid out, and they refused to pay him out, only yesterday,' said Aristide. ‘Another thing, be careful you arrest the right man: there are four brothers Bertillon in the bank daily, and the three others would give themselves up for Jules.'

‘What is his description?'

‘Tall, thin, yellow-skinned, with excellent manners and a sweet smile,' complained Aristide. ‘A man born for swindling. But the employees will tell you.'

‘No, you can come with us and identify him.'

‘Not in the bank. Please think of my situation … I will wait outside with an officer and identify him.'

At eleven o'clock in the morning William came running to Alphendéry's room. ‘Michel, there are police downstairs; they want to arrest Jules.'

Michel did not even answer: he seized the telephone and asked for Maître Lemaître's number. ‘Maître Lemaître? Alphendéry here. Come immediately to the bank—take a taxi and come
at once
!' He dropped the telephone and rushed downstairs where Jules was arguing without making any impression on the magistrate and police officers. ‘What are you doing here?' asked Alphendéry boldly. ‘You have no warrant. You are making a scandal.'

They riposted, thinking themselves in the right and Alphendéry a bluffer. Jules stood to one side, now that reinforcements had arrived. He was exhausted and had no fight in him.

‘It is a lie that we will not pay out accounts,' Alphendéry blustered. ‘You have no evidence. We can just show you that we have paid out Mme. de Sluys-Forêt every sou of 630,000 francs and every bond and stock. Do you want to speak to her on the telephone? Who gave you this information? Someone who is trying to ruin us. I know the name. Raccamond. He is a customers' man who has run amok and has been trying to drag us in the mud for weeks. We are a respectable bank standing here for twenty years, doing business, no complaint allowed against us, paying out every sou owed, with a brilliant, respectable, and rich clientele, and all you can do, you miserable crowd of legal pedants, is to set up a hue and cry on the complaint of the first blackmailer who falls on all fours in your bureau!

‘The trouble with you all is that you love theatrical scenes. You are divided against yourself. There is the magistrate who tries to dispense justice and, no doubt, with reasonable impartiality; and there is the eye of the magistrate who is all the time thinking, “I am playing in a boulevard play; this is the second act. How is everyone taking it? Am I in the grand style? Would Racine have written the way I talk? Have I got the opponent buffaloed? Am I really a magistrate?” Whence it follows, that you don't dare give the other fellow a moment to explain himself, for fear he will be talking like Racine and you like a ninny that has made a mistake. What are the police and government officials without a little browbeating?

‘Listen, Messieurs, come upstairs and I'll show you a safe full of gold. Here, groom, go and get Mlle. Bernard; tell her to go at once and open the gold safe. Mr. Bertillon and I and some gentlemen wish to see the gold there—a little party of pleasure.'

Some were inclined to back down at this. The party tramped upstairs and walked in on the astounded Mlle. Bernard sitting guard over the gold safe. She opened it as she saw them come in.

‘Take out the bags and show the gentlemen,' commanded Alphendéry. She opened a few of the wash leather bags and poured out the coins before them.

‘Give one to this gentleman,' said Alphendéry. Mlle. Bernard did so, reaching up from where she brooded over the coins. The magistrate, intimidated at the sight of so much wealth, took the bag and, feeling it with immense pleasure, sighed and returned it to the girl.

‘I see.'

‘You can ring up the Banque de France and find out if we have not just deposited two million francs there …'

‘Ah, ah,' said the magistrate, trying to be cunning, ‘but if all this is so—of course, I see the gold—why do we have so many complaints against you that you don't pay out accounts?'

‘You only have had one,' stormed Alphendéry, ‘and it was from a liar. Do you want to know the bottom of the matter? This lunatic—he is a neurotic, but a neurotic is a lunatic—this lunatic telegraphed a client to Spain telling him to order out his account. The client telegraphs us ordering out the account. But did you ever hear of a banker paying out a large account on an unconfirmed telegram? Of course not. And do you wish to know what we are going to do? We have that telegram sent by your plaintiff Raccamond. It says that we are going to close our doors last Saturday. But this is Tuesday! You see? This Raccamond is an excitable, jealous, mad sort of fellow, the typical blackmailing employee, with a brainstorm on top of it all. And this is your evidence? This is the man you trust? You came up here without sufficient reflection, Magistrate!'

At this moment, Maître Lemaître walked in. He had lost no time for he knew Alphendéry did not cry wolf for fun.

‘You have no powers here,' said the
maître
. ‘No complaint has been lodged, no evidence given. You are trespassing here. You should be sued for causing a scandal and injuring a man's business. Mr. Bertillon has never failed to pay a sou and you can look for that from the beginning of the bank until now.'

As soon as Maître Lemaître entered, however, the police and the judge, already partly convinced, changed their minds entirely. Lemaître was one of the most distinguished men in France and had salon influence. They felt that if he supported Bertillon, Bertillon was either right or rich. That is right.

‘Nevertheless,' sulked the judge, ‘this complaint we had.'

‘Ah,' cried the lawyer, properly angry, ‘if you make a descent on a business every time someone complains, we can shut all the commerce in France from this morning on.'

‘No, dear
maître
,' said the magistrate, ‘we did not act on caprice. The warning given us by the accuser, Mr. Raccamond, would not have been seriously considered by us, despite his books, which call for no emergency action. We believed his assertion that Mr. Bertillon refused to pay clients and was about to depart today, only because this bank promised to open its books in London for our inspection in the complaint against X for concealing evidence in the case of Henri Parouart. We heard from London this very morning that on the pretense that an inquiry against X is not permitted in English law, the Banque Bertillon has not honored its word. We are well acquainted with the complaints of Mr. Parouart. We know his character and if you are afraid of a petty swindler, all must be wrong. The conjunction of this vicious behavior on the part of this bank with the complaint of Mr. Raccamond determined us to act at once. But now we shall proceed, since there is no urgency to a
mise en moeurs
or general inquiry.'

Maître Lemaître escorted them to the prison car they had brought with them, for the arrest of Bertillon. On the pavement, a figure of vengeance, astonished and mortified, stood Raccamond, waiting to see Bertillon carried off to jail. Swindled again, thought Raccamond. He is as cunning as a fox. He went to the nearest bar, entered the telephone booth, and rang up Bertillon.

‘Jules Bertillon speaking. What? Is that you, Raccamond, you miserable rat. Wait till I get hold of you … I'll screw your neck. Just come near here! We've got a reception committee here for you. Listen, just hear one thing—take your clients and get out of here.'

Someone took the telephone; a voice said, ‘Raccamond? You're completely discredited; you needn't work for your twelve months' advance salary. You can go to the Crédit or whatever it is at once. Don't come near the place. We'll pay out your clients. We don't want to see your mug again. And listen, any more comic-opera stuff like you stage-managed this morning and you'll find yourself thinking things out in the cooler. Tell that charming wife of yours we're going to sue you both for defamation. You'll never get another job after that, Aristide, Carrière or no Carrière.' A string of foul words followed. William jammed down the phone.

Ah, ah, ah. So they were gloating over his defeat … But he was not beaten. He was going to make out a complaint in regular style against them for abuse of clients' confidence. He would have them in the end. He took an absinthe and then hailed a taxi and went to Maître Olonsky's.

Mouradzian learned that his instincts were right and that Raccamond had failed. The magistrate dismissed Raccamond's charges, and the famous books, the Aladdin's lamp of power, were retained in the file.

That evening he went to see Aristide Raccamond.

‘Well, bad news about the Bertillon case: I sympathize with you.'

‘He has influence on his side: the courts are full of corruption. This examining magistrate is evidently bought.'

‘Tough luck. That makes no difference to you. He goes scot-free and you're in a hole. He dismissed you, evidently.'

Raccamond drew back, looked carefully at his enemy. ‘No, I left. I got twelve months' pay, I still have his agreement, and I have withdrawn all my clients.'

‘I understand he's suing you for telegraphing that he was going bankrupt.'

‘Who told you?'

‘I heard. What made you do it? Never put anything on paper; make the other fellow do that. Simple maxim. And now, what's the future, Raccamond? You have plenty of support, of course. Carrière still …'